Title: Terminator: Dark Fate

Year: 2019

Genre: Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Runtime: 128 min

Director: Tim Miller

Starring: Mackenzie Davis, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong

  7,0/10

 

 

Sarah Connor and a hybrid cyborg human must protect a young girl from a newly modified liquid Terminator from the future.

RE-USED MONEY GRAB

*Spoiler

This is such money grab that it’s offensive to the fans and franchise. Like the other installments in this series that are trying to modify the story – it’s just reusing the original plot. An important character is being chased by a robot from the future meanwhile a modified soldier is sent back in time to save her. The only difference this time is that the Connors have destroyed Skynet and basically erased that forthcoming timeline. But it seems that the heroic action did nothing, and instead of a peaceful future they just have new evil cooperation of mad A.I. robots. With this decision, I really feel that the studios are spitting us original fans in the face with making further sequels. I feel like they are saying: “Ey! Don’t look back! Everything you liked never happened anyway.”

I understand that this movie works as the bridge between the old movies and the new sequels, and it does that through erasing the past events and introduce new characters. While the last one tied the knot on the past, this introduce the future. If they wanted a good transition, they should have handled this better and don’t metaphorically delete the original movies. For example, they could have the Skynet return or they really didn’t go away from the start. 

The other thing I don’t like about the plot, it’s the main girl, character Dani Ramos, the one who the robot is trying to kill. The pick feels very random and the filmmakers really don’t motivate why such she is such an important character. They give us a half-ass explanation that she is the leader of the future but not how or why she came to be that. She is not a long-lost family member of the Connors, which I hoped she was. I wouldn’t LOVE that plotline but would love it MORE than this. Here frankly she just is. 

The cast did a decent job. The few line-deliveries that annoyed me would I say is more of a script problem than an acting-problem. Of course, I will geek-out and praise Schwarzenegger’s part in the film. Even though I feel that his age is catching up with him – having slower and careful movements, I think he did a good job making his (probably) farewell performance for this role. Besides the Governator, I admit that I like Mackenzie Davis’s performance as the time-traveling soldier. It wasn’t revolutionary, but again, it’s probably the script’s fault. Most of the times you feel both amazement and empathy for her character.

The camera work was okay, and I hated most of the special effects. Honestly, the 80’s film felt more realistic. This futuristic robot can shape-shift like T-1000 in the 1991 sequel, but this creature looks so fake when he is fighting and taking hits from the film’s trio of heroines. Everything feels unfinished, and I think as well as hopes that this is because of time limits or studio interference. That’s often the case.

Most of the good parts about this movie are the connection to the original concept and of course Arnold himself. Nostalgia is very powerful and it made me think back to the classic so I’m thankful that it at least does that.